Tag Archives: climate change

Oh boy. Today we see TomBat courageously dipping his toe into, uh, “climate change politics”, let’s say. It’s an issue he tackles once a decade or so. Regardless of where you stand or how you feel about climate change, I think it’s safe to say that anyone concerned with or bothered by climate would take their chances sinking in Florida over living in Westview, where months-long Antarctic-like blizzards and life-threatening leaf falls are a way of life. It makes even New Jersey look like paradise.

Yeah yeah yeah, his name is in there but please, try to refrain from “political debate” in the comment section and devote your energies toward making fun of the comic strip, please. It’s one of the few things left that all comic strip-reading Americans can agree upon. I ask for so little and give so much, just indulge me on this one. Thank you in advance.

Finally, at long last, I can stop typing “Holly’s mom” over and over and over again. It’s one of the unforeseen pitfalls of following this strip, the way Batom forces me to train my muscle memory to repeatedly type otherwise bizarre and useless phrases hundreds of times, like “band mattresses”, “Atomik Komix” and “smug bearded piece of shit”. Anyhow, her name is Melinda. OK then.

When in doubt, drag some mother-in-law gags out. The very last thing FW needs is ANOTHER adorable old coot character but it would appear that this “Melinda” is THIS CLOSE to becoming another FW regular. I will tactfully refrain from pointing out that long-range climate change would probably not have all that much of an impact on a ninety year old woman but hey, FW has NEVER shied away from Topical Issues That Affect Us All, especially somewhat vague references to said Topical Issues. Personally speaking, I’d LOVE to see a four month long arc about Melinda’s house sinking into the Atlantic Ocean but that’s just me.

PharmDawgJanuary 3, 2018 at 11:22 pm
If this was an AA meeting, somebody would have stopped Funky mid-sentence by saying, “In keeping with our singleness of purpose and our Third Tradition which states that ‘The only requirement for A.A. membership
is a desire to stop drinking,’ we ask that all who participate confine their discussion to their problems with
alcohol.”

Comment of the week right there, folks. Of course, what we’re seeing is not an AA meeting, but what Batiuk thinks an AA meeting is like. Hence, we see people drinking coffee (which does happen) and smoking cigarettes (which is not allowed indoors in most places, including Ohio).

Of course, no list by Batiuk of What Ails the World would be complete without a mention of climate change, and everyone’s complicity in same: “We’re sending cruise ships…” Watching glaciers melt, or grass grow, or paint dry would be far more interesting than wading through a week of this dreck.

Well, that didn’t last long. The shared affection seen yesterday has evaporated, like much of Lake Chad, by today’s strip. In its place we get ennui, hairy sofa cushions, and a plot synopsis for the Waterworld prequel.

None of that surprises me, though. What does surprise me is that TB didn’t have Kablichnick deliver this joke to a class full of terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad young people. In any event, it adds to the clip show feel of this whole week.

While he’s only been back in Westview a short while, Darin’s already got the beginnings of Batiuk Butt

I honestly don’t know what’s been hardest to swallow these last couple of weeks: Fred’s stroke prompting Ann to reveal the bitterness that permeated their married life, or Darin and Jessica, married over ten years, conversing like two newlyweds. Today we get a dose of the latter. The “kids” head to the vendos for some coffee, giving Darin a chance to ruminate on what he’s just learned about his “loving” adoptive parents. He shares with his bride of over a decade what he’s “always pictured marriage” to be like: “…being deeply in love forever and ever to the exclusion of everything else.” “Everything else” consisting of things such as putting your MBA to good use, or getting it together to buy a home instead of crashing with friends or living in a dump above a pizza parlor.

Cory cares not a rat’s ass about climate change; he just enjoys being a shit-disturber. What I find disturbing is the hit-or-miss quality of the artwork in today’s comic. Check out the grotesesque grinning mug at the far right of panel 2: what’s he smiling about? And I recognize Summer by her blue hair, but has her face melted? What dread, degenerative disease has caused Rana’s droopy mug in the penultimate panel? And Cory seems to age about 15 years between panels 4 & 5. He morphs, mid-harangue, from a dopey child to a sardonic hipster.

Wouldn’t recycled paper be the most eco-friendly option? I’m not sure how cutting “farm-raised trees” has less of a carbon impact than cutting trees that are, uh, free range? It’s like telling a vegetarian that it’s ok to eat that burger because it came from a farm-raised cow.

Unlike Tom Batiuk, I strive to keep my personal opinions out of my “writing”. But since he insists on preaching to us (through Jim the Science Guy) about climate change (I don’t call it global warming), I’m going to vent a little “greenhouse gas” here myself: I’m one of “those people” who do not believe that the planet is irreversibly heating up, even after the just-ended record-warm winter (which I, not being a winter sportsman, enjoyed the hell out of). There is at least as much credible scientific opinion to disprove climate change as there is to prove it.

That’s my opinion, and you, dear reader, are welcome to your own. On to today’s strip. We find Cory actually awake and paying attention in class (because even Cory is concerned about Global Warming). He shares that he “heard someone on the radio” (these kids and their radios these days, am I right?) call Global Warming “a hoax”. Cory gives a sly, demure tilt of his head, as if to say “Gee, Mr. Kablichnik, that feller on the radio can’t be right…can he? Say it ain’t so, Jim.” Jim wearily throws up his hands; he’s heard the deniers (such fools!), and sets Cory, and the rest of us, straight.

For your pleasure: previous strips dealing with the “fact” of Global Warming:

May 25, 2008: Same premise as today’s strip (and how long has Rana been in this class?) But I gotta give props to Jim for mentioning a classic Randy Newman song.

December 5, 2010: “Of course Global Warming can actually mean we get more snow. That doesn’t make sense to you?”

June 23, 2011: Principal Nate is on board with the whole global warming thing, to the point of inserting it into random conversations: